Routine
by previouslysane
Summary: This feels like the last time I'll wake up. The last time I'll breathe in. The last moment that I continue to care anymore. But it's not. And I hate myself for it. In accepting Fred's death, George becomes secluded. R
1. Chapter 1

This feels like the last time I'll wake up.

The last time I'll breathe in.

The last moment that I continue to care anymore.

But it's not. And I hate myself for it.

I woke up again this morning with a weight on my chest and a headache. It's always these two things in the mornings, but every dawn feels like I've never had them before. I swing my feet over the bed and will myself to stand up. Go through the routine, again, again. Go through the morning routine.

Shower

Towel

Muss up hair.

Arm

Arm

Head through hole.

Brush

Rinse

Apple? Pear?

(Usually pear, the apple is too common.) Blindly I stumble through the mornings, mindlessly, thoughtlessly tripping my way through the mornings.

I realize that if I think, the only thing that comes to mind is you.

See, see! There I am, narrating my life—there you slip your way back into my thoughts. I mustn't think about you. Yes, yes, the healer says obsession is why I was trapped in St. Mungo's in the first place—

"Mr. Weasley! Mr. Weasley! This customer wants to know about this product." Verity's voice tinkled. "Mr. Weasley! Mr. Weasley! Bill has come to visit!"

"Right there, Verity." I would mutter, follow blankly. A shell, a marvelous shell to go assist customers. To go withstand the chastising of my family. "Thank you, come again. I'm alright Bill, honest." Lies I would tell. So many lies. So much pain.

"Ron and Hermione are getting married." Bill said to me one afternoon. "They want you to come."

"Yes, I'll be there." I muttered.

"Just like you were there for my daughter's birth." Bill hissed, the ounce of wolf shining through. "Mum cried for a week after that, you're making her very worried.

"I'm sorry about that. I'll have to apologize to mum as well." I said, organizing the puking pastilles. Organizing arranging. Re-organizing. Refusing to get frustrated. Bill looked as though he wanted to say something to me. Something very harsh and bossy, but he held his tongue, shook his head, and left the Joke shop.

I remember, remember, remember that day. Mum shipped me off—sent me away. It was at your funeral. I didn't shed a tear. Not one. In fact, the exact opposite really. It was very hot that day—I remember being so annoyed at having to wear my suit, whining to mum about even attending. I didn't cry. I just whined. People around me were crying. They were all crying—teardrops were consuming me in oceans of grief, until I found that little chuckle.

The little chuckle dried the seas of sorrow, until it turned into a chortle. The chortle cracked the ground dry, and I was all-out laughing now, falling through the cracks of my mental ground. I can remember a fuss around me, people yelling at me, calling me immature. I remember Harry casting spells on me—slapping me. My eyes bulged and drool ran down my chin. My insides were burning with laugher, plaguing me like a torture. I couldn't stop laughing and it hurt. I couldn't breathe from stitches, I couldn't see from the white spots bursting in my sight. And I remember seeing your face there, when I had stopped laughing, hours and hours later in St. Mungo's. You were lying next to me, staring into my eyes speaking Gobledegok and Mermish and whispering tales of youthful mischief.

Those were beautiful times, those of my insanity.

Talking me down from such a perfect pedestal to reality took a while, though, as you might've seen. Nearly 6 months had passed before I snapped again. Quite opposite from what had happened at your funeral, though. You weren't lying next to me, I realized. It was a mirror that I stared into confessing secrets and fears. I slammed myself into the mirror until it shattered. Even after, I slammed myself into the wall until I shattered. I never seemed to, though. I would never shatter. It hurt to breathe ever since. Ever since I had realized that I can _not _get you back, no matter how much denial my mind goes through. Eight months from that denial, now, I see the year that has passed without you as a test. Would I wake up? Would you be proud of my survival, how I have not yet managed to kill myself? Or are you angry? Angry that I didn't come to you immediately—is it truly heaven if you're feeling how I'm feeling now?

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
So sad, don't you think? I always like Fred and George stories, I really do. This is from his perspective, (If you can't tell) but I think that this one is a different style than what I'm used to. It's a completely different style from what I've seen, anyway. Please, review! **

**And I know, I know… George is Emo. Well—sue me, what would **_**you**_** be like if your brother had died? **

**Reviews ploz**


	2. Chapter 2

Shower

Towel

Muss up hair.

Arm

Arm

Head through hole.

Brush

Rinse

Apple? Pear?

(Pear again. I don't know if that apple is crisp or not.) Day by day. That's how we take it now, isn't it? That's how we've always taken it. Now, day by day holds a survival meaning rather than a carefree, lawless one.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley! MR. WEASLEY, MR. WEASLEY!" Verity's voice is a metronome. "Mr. Weasley! MR. WEASLEY! Mr. Weasley!" You know, they send her to check on me from time to time. They send her laden with cakes and hams because they know I'll I've got to eat are baked beans in a can. They expect me to find some sort of solace in this woman who still calls me 'Mr. Weasley'. I flash her my false smile once in while to try and thank her for all she's done. She was the one who took the store on while I was at St. Mungo's. She handles the expenses with the help of Bill, and she is always here on time. I've given her three raises since I got back.

Now time, though. It's time for bed. I like to sleep because I don't have dreams. The only magic I feel capable of doing is creating the draught that gives me a dreamless sleep. I'm afraid of what I'll see when I dream. I'm afraid of slipping over the edge of insanity again and falling in so deep that I won't be able to see the light of reality. I take my dreamless draught and I fall asleep without another thought to you. I know you might be sad that I do this, but if I think about you for too long, I get that aching feeling in my body. Like I had just lost a lung and I was suffocating slowly because of the lack of it.

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Short chapter, I know. But I'm trying to show the monotony of George, okay? And why wouldn't I get another chance for him to loathe himself? :) **

**Just kidding, I love you George. **

**Your input would be most admirable.**


	3. Chapter 3

Shower

Towel

Muss up hair.

Arm

Arm

Head through hole.

Brush

Rinse

Apple? Pear?

(I'm so used to the pear by now that I don't even really consider the apple.) The shop's rather empty today. It's strange not hearing the constant call of 'Mr. Weasley!' from Verity. I almost ask her to record it just so I can play it. I need my day to feel complete, and it won't if she doesn't call me to fix something or talk to someone.

"Mr. Weasley?" Verity's voice was timid. Whoever was with her wasn't a customer or a family member. Someone had asked to see me, and she didn't know who it was. "Someone wants to speak with you."

"Hm?" I asked, the routine shifted. I stood up from my desk, from my paperwork and sauntered out to the shop.

And there she was.

Oh, there she was, standing in the shop. It was a brief escape from the binds I had put myself into. Angelina Johnson, her arms crossed, her foot tapping stood in my shop. She caught sight of me and glared. I nearly felt giddy at her anger, I haven't felt any other emotion towards me besides pity.

"George Weasley." She growled.

"Hello Angelina. Why are you here?"

**_*SMACK.*_**

I fell to the ground at the shock of that smack. She straddled me on the ground and grabbed the front of my robes. Verity scrambled forward but hesitated in helping me.

"SNAP OUT OF IT!" She cried. "We miss you! We miss having you around, we miss your jokes!"

"There's nothing to miss-!" I breathed, my eyes wide looking up at Angelina.

"No! George, George! We can't have both of you die!"

"What?" I spluttered. That's the point of existing, isn't it? The fact that I hadn't died, and she had suggested that I had. "I _know _that I'm alive! I feel it every day!"

"No you _don't._" She was sobbing. "You're numb to everything, you've got stuck in a rut—you seem more likely to work at the Department of International Cooperation rather than at a Joke shop! You've died a little, haven't you?"

"So what if I have!" I bellowed, looking up at her. "I can't live like this! I can't ever truly live again—"

"Yes you can," She breathed. "You can do whatever you want to. You're a Weasley twin, don't let his death stop you…"

I looked at myself, replayed the last eight months in my head and realized that they had all consisted of the same day. I was shaking now, sobbing this time from the pain of killing myself, killing my soul.

"It hurts," I cried, throwing my head back. "It hurts to care so much…"

"I know it does." Angelina whispered, slowly sliding off of me. "It hurts all of us. It hurts us to see how much pain you're in. It hurts us to see how much you loved him."

"Him." I hiccupped. "F-Fr-Fred." Something snapped inside my chest. Something warm and comforting filled my insides, it made me sleepy. "Fred… he's… he's gone." I murmured, not sure if this feeling was good or if it was bad.

"Yes," Angelina said, her lip quivering. "He's dead."

**There you go, laddies. Something happened. No one's really following this story, but perhaps someone will once they read this? I don't know. :) Alright, review please!**


	4. Chapter 4

"Finally!" Fred called, getting up from sitting at the Gryffindor Table. "George, I wondered when I'd get to see you!" Fred walked over to me and hugged me. I hugged back with limp arms. Where was I? Was I insane again? I wasn't swamped with a muddled euphoria this time, however. "Don't worry, Georgie, You're not crazy again."

"What is this?" I asked tentatively. "Fred… you're gone, right?"

Fred's grin slid slowly off his face like cheese off of a pizza. I was horrified; I didn't mean to make him sad like that. "Yes I am," he said smally. "But this is your first dream where you didn't have the potion."

I stared at him. "Really? There must have been times at St. Mungos—"

"But you were barmy then, mate. Every dream I was in with you there was a reflection of me—they wouldn't let me see you until you'd pulled your act together."

"They?" I asked.

"Don't ask, _I _don't even know who They are…." Fred scoffed. "Well, anyway. To the point on why I'm here." Fred sighed and looked George in the face. "You're killing me, George, you're killing me."

"It's not my fault that you died!" George recited what his therapist had told him. It had become so routine that it was almost a reflex. "I had nothing to do—"

"Save the shpiel, George, that's not what I meant." Fred said. "The way you're living your life now is killing our spirit. The spirit of the joke shop, the spirit that we had in school."

"It's difficult though, Fred." I said. "It's difficult to go on as though nothing happened, to forget you."

"Forget me?" Fred laughed loudly. "There's no way you'll ever forget me! I'm just saying, be happy again, George! I'm one of your brothers who's looking at you and telling you to get over it—and _I'm_ the one who's died!" Fred chuckled. I didn't smile.

"Come on. Tell me a joke. Give us a laugh, yeah?"

"A…a joke?" I said as though the word was a foreign one. I couldn't remember the last time I told one, heard one, though of one, or even simply chuckled genuinely.

"Okay, I got a good twin joke." Fred said excitedly. "There was a mother who named her twins Juan and Amal. She had to give them up for adoption, and she was very sad. Years and years later Juan contacts her and this makes her happy.

" 'Oh! I wish I could see Amal as well!' she says to her husband. The husband replied.

" 'They're twins! Once you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal!'" Fred roared with laugher and I felt a twitch in my smile. Suddenly I was laughing, a balloon inflated inside of me, a joyous emotion lifting through the rafters of the Great Hall. The last time I had laughed, it was a torture, a curse that had been put upon me. This laugh, this genuine laugh cured me of all my ailments, fixed me of everything wrong.

"Now you live, George Weasley, and you have twice the spirit to make up for me gone, alright?"

"I promise," I said, smiling.

"Visit my grave sometime too!" He said, fading away.

"Fred—" It didn't seem like enough time, it really didn't.

"And give Angelina a try! I think you two are cute together!" His voice was from the end of a long tunnel, as though he were walking away from me into beyond.

"Bye Fred! I'll see you! I promise!" I called after him. He smiled a transparent, crooked smile, and he was gone.

**Turning point, kiddies. 'Tis a turning point. Isn't it lovely? I thought their unconscious bonds were sweet to watch. George seems a much younger man, now, agreement?**

**Just review, please. :D**


	5. Chapter 5

I woke up on my bed in the flat and I knew that dream was real. I felt elated, content. The weight on my chest had lessened. I looked forward to the day. I blinked in the sunlight, a perfect sunlight and looked to my bedroom door.

Shower… actually, I took a bath this morning. It was quite relaxing.

Towel

Muss up hair. I mess up my hair because I'm afraid of the mirror. I don't look in the mirror anymore, but… Conjuring one up, I placed it where the mirror was supposed to be. I was shocked to see how much older I looked. When I saw Fred in my dream last night, he was glowing with happiness, with life. Ironic that I'm the one alive, but not living. I brushed my hair this time and cleaned my ear-scar. I had paid less and less attention to it, but I think it's starting to get better. Maybe I'll get a sarcastic tattoo there, to lighten the mood.

Arm

Arm

Head through hole. Hm. I never really realized what robes I was wearing until now. They were all black, as though I were still in mourning. I transfigured the color so that they were a bright blue. They really complimented my eyes, I noted, gazing into my new mirror.

Brush

Rinse

Apple? Pear?

Angelina?

Angelina was lying on the couch, fast asleep. She looked as though she had been crying, stripes ran down her face. I remembered what Fred said and I thought about it. Me and Angelina? I mean, it's not surprising, we've been friends forever, but something like that just doesn't happen in a couple of days, now does it? Maybe Fred was just speaking through me, maybe he really wanted Angelina. After all, she is his ex girlfriend.

"Hey Angelina." I whispered in her ear, smiling as I did so. "Angelina wake up."

She groaned. "George… let me sleep, I'm tired."

"Angie," I urged. "I've got a joke I want to tell you."

See what I did thur? I left the rest to the imagination. It's a very short chapter, and a rather abrupt ending, but I'm pleased with it. STORY COMPLETION. :)

D'awh, I want you to ask me to review again…


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